Aaron Swartz died January 11, 2013, at the age of 26. In his short life, he worked successfully to enhance the free flow of information and to combat censorship at a global scale.
He co-authored a ubiquitous standard for sharing information on the web while barely a teenager; he helped build a company that lets individuals share news stories; he wrote software that lets writers and programmers build web sites; he helped create a licensing scheme for creators wanting to share their work freely; he helped construct a comprehensive web catalog that supports free access to and sharing of a million books; he led a protest movement that defeated a censorship bill.
We should each aspire to act in each other's interests as Aaron did; he was a true American hero.